The Flask
by adama-roslinlove
Summary: Takes place during Deadlock, season 4.5. After Bill hands Ellen the flask once she reveals that she's one of the final five, Laura isn't very happy with him and now he is in the doghouse with her. Set later that night.


**This was given to me as a prompt by Renee86. The prompt was: Write a scene that shows how Laura reacted later that night to Bill handing Ellen Tigh the flask after she presents herself as a final five cylon. This is my version as to how she would react. Hope you enjoy it! Disclaimer: I do not own** _ **Battlestar Galactica**_.

 _Ellen Tigh. Ellen Tigh. Why her? Why now?_ Bill is lost in his thoughts as he steps over the hatchway and into his quarters, nodding at his marines as he does so. The hatch locks behind him as he shuffles into his quarters. If he had been sober, he might have noticed the sole light on in the back of his quarters and seen Laura glaring at him from the confines of the back room, but he did not. Having given his flask to Ellen earlier in the day, he hadn't had his usual alcohol all day. Feeling the closeness to sobriety that he doesn't want, he walks over to the drink cart and pours himself a generous amount of alcohol. Tossing it back in one fluid motion, he then pours himself another.

"Don't you think you've had just about enough of that?" Laura says sharply, raising her voice just enough so that she can be heard throughout their quarters. She's lying on the rack with a book in her hand, though not focused on the book anymore. Although if she wants to be completely truthful with herself, she hadn't been focusing on the book since she picked it up. "I'm pretty sure you've gone through the entirety of the alcohol that this fleet has." She keeps her voice steady, her anger slowly simmering underneath.

Bill looks at her, glaring. If looks could kill, she would be dead right now. Instead of yelling though, he just says, "Luckily for me, it seems that alcohol never runs out around here." He tosses back another glass and then sits down on the couch, fumbling with his boot laces while trying to untie them.

She lets out a huff of annoyance at his statement, even though it is true, and then is silent. After a few minutes of silence which allows the rage to build within her, she slams the book down on the side of the rack and then slowly swings her legs over the edge, standing up. Making her way to the front room of the quarters, she sits down on the back edge of his desk, facing him, and crosses her arms in front of her chest. Looking down at him, there is an icy coldness in her voice as she speaks. "Well, I think you've had enough." She swallows back her anger and this time her voice slightly wavers as she says, "And the flask, Bill? Really? You're that deep into the bottle that you can't even be sober while you're working?"

Bill finishes untying his boots and slides his feet out of them. He then looks up at her and raises his voice another level, clenching his teeth. "Just stop, Laura. Stop. You don't understand."

Laura matches the volume of her voice to his. "I'm not going to stop, Bill. I'm not. Not until you tell me why you are doing this. The only thing I don't understand is how you went from being the man that I loved to a man that can't even pull his head out of a glass! The man who apologized to me on Kobol and who kissed me the day I promoted him would abhor who he became! How did it come to this, Bill? What happened?"

"Laura, I don't want to talk about this right now, especially not with you," Bill growls in a low voice.

"You haven't wanted to talk about this since you started doing it. You're just avoiding the problem," Laura says, not letting up on her volume. "What happened? What made you become the alcoholic that you are now?" After a few moments of silence, Laura says, "I can do this all night if you want me to." She walks over to the drink cart and pours herself a glass of alcohol. Tossing it back, she grimaces as it burns the whole way down her throat. Slamming the glass back down on the tray a little harder than she meant to, she yells, "Do you want me to keep going? I will!" She reaches to pick up the decanter to refill her glass when she hears Bill say behind her, "Stop." Not looking around, she says, "Why should I stop?"

Bill gets up from the couch and walks behind Laura, taking her hand away from the decanter and moving her glass away from her. "Stop," he says again, softer this time. Moving back over towards the couch, he sits back down and waits for Laura to turn around and face him.

Laura closes her eyes for a moment and takes a breath. Turning around, she moves over towards the couch and sits on the far side of it, away from Bill. There is a long moment of silence where she almost thinks that everything that they have ever worked for together has been broken. She finally says in a softer voice than she had been using all night, "Why, Bill? What changed?"

Bill lets out a deep breath and then looks up from his lap into her eyes. "You." He tries to say more, to explain, but his voice won't cooperate.

"What?" Laura says, shocked beyond words. She can't have heard that right.

Finally, Bill's voice starts working again, but now he is looking back down in his lap. "What changed was you. I finally realized that I loved you, and then you became the dying leader again. I became alone and depressed, so I searched for comfort in the bottle. That's what changed. That's what happened." Leaning his elbows on his knees, he places his head in his hands and just sits there, staring off into space.

Laura doesn't move from her place on the couch, but she does relax a little bit more into it. "Bill, I've never told you this. But I understand far better than you imagine. My mother died of breast cancer. I took care of her while she was going through Diloxan, but she didn't make it." She pauses at this moment to try and stop the tears that are threatening to build up. Her eyes are on her lap, not looking at Bill whom she knows is watching her. "I watched her wither away and die the same way you are watching me. I know what that feels like. I know the pain that you're in. And believe me, if I hadn't been a teacher at that time, I probably would have turned to the bottle too just to get me through each day of visiting her and seeing her wither away in front of my very eyes. I understand your pain. But you should have talked to me. It's far easier being the person who dies than being the person who has to watch them die. I know from experience. But I shouldn't have to watch you drink yourself into a stupor everyday because you're trying to drown out your emotions and feelings. Watching you do that hurts me in the most terrible way. It's like you're trying to drown me out as well."

"No, Laura, that's not what I'm trying to do. I'm just trying to get rid of my pain."

"But your pain is caused by me. I know it is. So maybe you could try to talk to me about that pain instead of going to the bottle every time. The bottle doesn't fix anything, it just hides it."

Bill reaches his hand across the couch and takes Laura's, gently squeezing it. "Okay," he says, agreeing with her.

Laura locks eyes with him and says, "But Bill, I'm still angry with you, so you're sleeping on the couch tonight."

 **Hope you enjoyed it! Reviews are loved.**


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